Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Making Your Campaign METAL!

A couple years ago there was a thread over on RPG.net about how to make one's campaign METAL. So I gave my own response, and put it here as well.

Recently another such thread has popped up, same thing happening, so here I repost my May 29, 2010 blog entry.

This came up on RPG.net some time back... "How do I make my campaign METAL?"

Most people, of course, went for style over substance and went for the look that metal is known for, without capturing anything that will make it feel metal. I saw that awful Metalocalypse show for the first time yesterday, and when most people want to "metal up" their role-playing, it's kind of like that - stereotypical and fucking stupid.

Here's a reprint of my suggestions to make your campaign HEAVY fucking METAL:

Considering all of metal's concepts were solidified in the 70s through mid-80s, the most metal thing you could do to your campaign is run it using AD&D 1E. ;)

But you want to make it metal...

War pigs.

Make the violence horrible. All of the ruling class - all of them - are despicable warmongers who sacrifice the well-being of their people to wage ever more senseless and destructive wars.

If it's rich, it's evil. If it's powerful, it's evil.

The PCs serve as Iron Hippies, fighting the power in the only way it understands... violence and force. The "points of light" are not physical locations, as the entire world is a dark, dark place. The points of light are in the hearts of the true, the unconquered, those that can see through the lies.

... until one day in the campaign... it's the PCs who are rich. And powerful. And even if they've always fought well for the cause, they're going to wake up one day and find that they're the enemy they've always been fighting against. Power always corrupts, always. If it's rich, it's evil. And the PCs have killed a lot of evil, and taken its stuff, and have gotten very rich. If it's powerful, it's evil. And the PCs have gained a lot of levels, and are very powerful. They've sold out, they've come too far to truly embody the spirit they've always championed, and it's up to the next generation of oppressed, angry warriors to be able to fight the good fight.

That's fucking metal.

Seems a lot more genuine than SPIKES, LEATHER, and SKULLS. I challenge you to name one quality album that has a skull on the cover. Yeah, there are a few, but you're going to have to think to name any. Skulls = Suck as a general rule.

20 comments:

Beneath the Remains by Sepultura and Scream Bloody Gore by Death. The Sepultura cover is pretty weak though compared to the actual track list on the album. And the Death cover is awesome, but Leprosy looked way cooler.

This post is cool though. When I was in high school we made a short film called "the quest for metal." After making the film I really wanted to make a death metal influenced D&D game. Never came up with anything cool though. This post has kinda rekindled that feeling. Even though the concept of good desroying evil, only to become evil itself, is awesome, I'd probably stick with some more of the hilarious metal stuff. Maybe a campaign about Finntroll? I wonder if Blind Guardian games? Thanks for the post.

Oh yea I forgot about SOD! Good call on that one. Even on the back of the SOD Live at Budokan VHS tape Billy Milano is wearing a skull mask. Ofcourse, if you've seen it, he comes out on stage with the mask on and leaps onto the crowd.

Well, Massive Killing Capacity by Dismember has piles of skulls and even a winged skull logo, it also has giant robot with chainsaws and iron cross (nazi lumberjack robot?) and a tank.I think it's good album.